The Fertility Mark (Book 1)

Sheldon

"Can you sing Soft Kitty for me please?"

I groaned silently as those dreadful words came tumbling out of her small mouth. I knew I couldn't blame her when I was the one who introduced her to that catchy lullaby or whatever you wanted to call it. But me personally, I blamed Sheldon from "The Big Bang Theory".

"Fine. But then you have to promise me you'll go to sleep. It's late and we both have school tomorrow."

Her lips trembled slightly and I couldn't help but to squeeze her tighter to me. My baby sister had started her first day of Second grade in the principals office, waiting for me to get there so we could cry together. I hadn't even sat down for my first class before I got pulled out and was given the horrible news. Just thinking about my parents death made me want to burst into tears, but I had promised myself I wouldn't cry anymore. I had cried enough since that horrible day two months ago and I needed to be strong. Since I was technically turning 18 two weeks later, I got full custody of the small 7 year old with brains of a ten year old. She needed me to be her rock and make sure that nothing would happen to her.

"Alright," she whispered a couple of minutes later and I pulled away, giving her a small smile. She smiled back and I nodded.

"Soft kitty,

Warm kitty,

Little ball of fur.

Happy kitty

Sleepy kitty

Purr purr purr."

She joined me at the end and we both laughed before I kissed her forehead and got up. "Goodnight," I murmured and she yawned in the middle of her nod. I was halfway through of closing the door when her small voice stopped me.

"Lila. Do you think mom and dad are watching us from heaven?"

My throat clogged up at both the mention of my parents and my nickname. I had to gulp many times to clear it before I could answer her. I knew I couldn't look at her without bursting into tears so I just looked down at my red toe nails, feeling her curious eyes on me.

"Every day," I whispered before closing the door.

As I walked by my parents room, I couldn't help but to stop and take a deep breath, inhaling the familiar smell. It still lingered in the room, but I could tell it was soon going to be gone. I prohibited both of us from going in there, but I sometimes found myself taking a couple of steps in, just so I could see the last moments of my parents.

The halfway opened book on my dads side of the bed. The untouched glass of water on my moms side. The two big blue slippers sitting feet from each other as they headed towards the bathroom, making me picture my father lazily leaving them behind as he wandered inside. The neatly spread out dress on the foot of the bed, making me laugh at my mothers over planning. She had been one of those women who always planned ahead and made sure that everything stayed in schedule. If anything went wrong, her whole day would be ruined and it took us hours to make her happy.

Ever since I was born, she always playfully called me her demon. She had my birth all planned out, but of course I had to ruin it and pop out a week earlier than expected. On the other hand, my sister managed to stay in the oven for a week more than what she was suppose to, and that earned her the name of demon number 2. We were the only "things" that ruined her life drastically back then, but I knew she still loved us.

Oh how I missed her playful, but stupid words. Her weird laugh that consisted of two "ha ha's" a snort and another round of "ha ha". Even though her life was always planned out, you couldn't help but to be drawn to her bubbly personality.

I found myself blindly walking towards the rocking chair that was what remained of my childhood. When my father was still with us, he would sometimes grab me by force and rocked me like a baby, making me blush from head to toe as my mother howled with laughter as she took pictures. Lily on the other hand would just be rolling on the floor, clutching her sides as she died of laughter at our parents stupidity.

I curled up into a ball and hugged the small pillow that strongly smelled of his cologne. The tears that were freely running down my face slowly gathered into a pool by my eyes and I had to force myself to wipe them before I drowned myself.

Without even noticing, I ended up falling asleep in that small position.

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"Lila....." Poke. "Lila....." Poke. "Lila!" Slap! My eyes flew open at the sharp sting from my cheek and I found myself staring into the green eyes of Ali.

"Huh? What happened. Where am I? What's wrong?" I asked more urgently as I saw her worried face.

"You're in mom and dads room," she whispered and I froze. Memories from last night came flooding back and I softly cursed before standing up and groaning as my back popped. My whole body ached from sleeping in that awkward position and I knew I would regret it as soon as I got to Gym at school.

School! What time was it?

"It's 6:30," her soft voice said as if she could read my mind. I sighed in relief, and smiled slightly as I pushed us both out of the room before guiding us to the kitchen. "Why were you in their room?"

"I don't know how I found myself there," I half lied. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok," she murmured, looking down. "I have been there too before. I just didn't want to tell you because I thought you would get mad at me."

I slightly froze at her words, but then shook my head and ignored it. Of course she would go there. I had longer memories of them and she was just trying to keep whatever she had of them with her.

"It's ok," I repeated her words. We were silent for a few minutes and then I added, "Just don't touch anything."

Her eyes widen, but she nodded quickly and I sighed in relief. Now that that was out of the way, I turned around and opened the fridge to see what we would be having for breakfast.

"Oh. I guess we are having cereal because we are all out of eggs."

"We can't have cereal, remember? We ran out three days ago."

I cursed under my breath and groaned. I had completely forgotten to go shopping for food yesterday during my off period. It's not that I completely forgot, it's just that I ended up spending the whole period figuring out our balances and deciding when it was going to be time for me to get a job. Our parents had left us a small fortune that I didn't know about until their will was read and luckily, the house was paid in full so I didn't have to worry about anything except the bills.

"I forgot to go to the grocery store yesterday! Dang it!"

"It's alright Delilah," she said, using my full name. It was rare when she called me Delilah and when she did, I knew she was in the stages of being annoyed. "I'll just go with you after you pick me up. You don't have anything planned right?"

"No. It's Friday. Besides when do I have time to do anything?"

"Right."

"Alrighty. Shower and go get dressed. Try to hurry up so we can at least pass by McDonald's or something so we can get you something to eat."

She nodded and hopped off the stool and ran to her room. I followed behind but continued on, completely ignoring the open door to the sad room and walked inside to my own.

I could feel today was going to be one of those bad days.....